vailian

To me there is only one "perfect" piece, and that is the Matthew Passion by Bach. The Bach just has dimensions that you can never get to the bottom of. It was my favorite already before I came to Europe,and now that I can read the texts and am able to appreciate even more the incredible interplay of text/music images I am even more in awe... I bought myself a copy of the Bach manuscript, it is wonderful to see his handwriting.
I don't know if you have heard the "matthew passion" but the opening chorus has this hypnotic bass line, at first you think it is unchanging but when you listen carefully it is ALWAYS changing, like watching a flowing river, the same but with infinite variety and deep sadness (the choir is singing, "Come and share our mourning" and the second choir is interjecting with "Who?... How? ...Why?") and then in the middle of it, the boys choir sings a hymn tune in counterpoint, their pure voices carry a simple tune, singing "O Lamm Gottes unschuldig": that breaks your heart every time.
I remember being knocked over by this even the first time I heard it with an amateur group in California, and I had no idea what the text was, but the music alone carried such depth of emotion that I didn't feel I needed to know the text. But knowing the meaning of the lyrics brings a whole nother dimension to the piece. One choir is grieving, the other is expressing disbelief and anger, and the children sing of hope.
Looking at the autograph score, yet another thing comes out-- there are no lyrics in the line for the children's choir; that is, the melody was so well known that the line itself carried the meaning (sort of like hearing the opening of the Beatles' "Yesterday" without a vocal line: the words come into your head automatically. And--get this!-- Bach writes the entire rest of the Passion in black ink, but the boys' line is in red. When I first saw that, I burst into tears spontaneously (much to the astonishment of the proper Germans who were travelling in the train with me at the time).